Galactic Division - Book Two: Initiation Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning at breakfast, it turned out we didn’t have anything to discuss. It wasn’t a strained, awkward silence. It was very much a nervous, deep in thought silence. Casper didn’t look nervous as such, but his shoulders were definitely looking tensed, which was as much emotion as you generally would get from him. Tasia was… well, she just wasn’t there. She didn’t look, like, terrified or anything, but she’d definitely disappeared into some sort of shell, somewhere in her own head. Antonia just looked grim. She usually looked pretty irritable, but there was none of that fire there this morning. Liberty, who had deliberately signed up for this, looked as unsure as I had ever seen her. She looked pale. Her lips were pressed tight. Those big brown eyes were staring through the table. I looked closer, and no, they weren’t staring into nothingness. There was definitely something there. She was thinking about something, maybe running through her training in her head, mentally preparing herself for the mission, or who knows, maybe questioning why she had chosen to volunteer in the first place.

  I dreaded to think how I looked. I felt like a bubbling cauldron of emotion. I was definitely scared. I would say of all my emotions, that was the overriding one. It was a selfish fear, too. I was worrying about my own life, not the lives of my team. Actually, no, that wasn’t entirely true. I was concerned about them dying, but specifically about what would happen to me if they were killed, and I ended up all alone on the planet. I was clearly a terrible human being, because my first and only thought was myself. I tried to remember all the training. Could I remember how to fire the rocket beacon that would request the transport ship to pick me up? As the Tech Expert, Casper would be carrying one of them. Liberty would have the other. If they both went down, I’d have to remember to try to retrieve a rocket from one of them. My selfishness started to make me nauseous. Luckily, I had started to get used to the food, which had more often than not made me feel sick over the first few weeks of being there.

  Aside from fear, I was feeling very definite regret. I should have made far more effort to get hold of Chris, to tell him that I was going out on a mission. He’d turned his life upside down to follow me there, and if something happened to me on the mission, I’d be abandoning him, without even having said goodbye. I started to feel guilty for this too. Feeling guilty in advance for the inconsiderate act of dying. I shuddered. Death was inevitable, I had known that from the moment my number had been pulled out in the lottery. I would, though, have liked to have been better prepared for it. I hadn’t even written to my parents, I was realising. They wouldn’t even know that I had been drafted, and wouldn’t find out about my death until they tried to contact me, who knew when, and then fell down the tunnel of trying to track me down.

  “Everyone ready?” Liberty’s voice broke the silence. The answer, from myself at least, was a definite no. No-one replied, however. We all just looked up at her, meeting her eyes. They seemed sad. Like she was expecting the worst. This made me feel an even greater terror. Liberty was the most confident of us. If anyone could have expected the mission to go well, it would have been her. She wasn’t exuding much confidence, though. She rose, and left the dining hall, to make her last-minute preparations for leaving the ship. One by one, over the next few minutes, the rest of us left the table, and went on our way. We had around half an hour before we had to make our way to the departure area. I don’t know where the others went, or what they were doing, but I went straight there.

  I checked in at the departure area that we had been assigned to. Hung was there, to observe our preparations, and to make sure we didn’t make any mistakes. All our assigned equipment was there: Armour. Weapons. Scanning Rig. Beacon Rockets. My job as Weapons Expert was to check all the weapons, ammo, and any extra weaponised items we might need. We just had guns for that mission, though I would have felt much better with some high explosives. I hadn’t understood why we hadn’t been allowed grenades or anything like that for the operation, but as I stood there, checking the weaponry, loading them with live ammunition, I realised why. Just holding a gun with live ammunition, there, in the safety of the ship, was sending my pulse racing. We were novices at this. If we accidentally shot off a few rounds on the planet, there was only a small risk we would hit a teammate. If, however, we accidentally set off a grenade, we could take out a whole unit. A costly, and highly embarrassing mistake. How would Chris feel to find out I’d accidentally blown up my whole squad? He wouldn’t know whether to weep, or to piss his pants laughing.

  I checked the weapons again. Then, when I’d done that, I checked them again. Once I was finished, I checked them some more. Eventually, Hung stepped in, and advised me that they were probably fine by that point. Casper was checking his equipment by then, and the others had started arriving. With my job done, I took a Derm suit, and went into a cubicle to get changed. It was incredibly comfortable. I walked out of the cubicle area, passing Liberty going the opposite way with her suit, and I marvelled at how much lighter it was than the heavy armour I’d gotten used to. I was walking unnaturally fast, my muscle memory already having gotten used to the extra weight of the other armour. I picked up a rifle, checking again that it wasn’t in active mode. It was much easier to hold without the bulky shoulder frames of the heavy armour in the way. I was impressed. Maybe Liberty had been right after all, the light suits were much better. With nothing to do but wait, and still feeling nervous about the weapons, I started to strip my gun again.

  I noticed Liberty re-entering, and was going to tell her she’d made a great call. She walked towards me, tight armour clinging to her frame. The material wasn’t thin, but it naturally adhered to the shapes of your body, and the real armour was even tighter fitting than the simulation stuff. I could see the firm curves of her legs, the tautness of her muscular stomach, and the round curves of her chest. My mouth fell open. We’d all only seen each other in the relatively shapeless uniform jumpsuits, or the simulation armour we’d worn during some of the physical exercises. I’d never seen Liberty’s body in such a feminine form. I started to get a little embarrassed. Then I got a lot embarrassed, and I went back to thinking that wearing the tight, form-fitting Derm suits was a bad idea after all. I hastily put my rifle back together, and tried to go back to thinking about my impending death. Antonia and Tasia entered in their suits, and both looked very slender, but firm and muscular. Then, Casper came in. I wasn’t sure how I’d never noticed before, but he had the build of a champion athlete. He might not seem to care about much, but he clearly cared about hitting the gym hard. I looked down at my body in the suit. I wasn’t exactly soft and mushy, but I looked nowhere near as strong and athletic as the rest of the team. I resolved that if I made it back to the ship in one piece, I was going to work far harder in our gym sessions. It was no wonder the others were concerned I was the weak link. I literally looked like the weak link.

  We opened the doors onto the adjoining hanger. The transport ship was sitting there, and it wasn’t what any of us had expected. The transports usually had eight drop pods attached them, under huge wings, surrounding the main body of the ship. This transport, however, was a much smaller model. It seemed to hold just two pods, one on each side. Hung told us to load our stuff into the port side pod, and we got started. I carried the weaponry piece by piece into the pod, trying to keep my eyes averted from Liberty the whole time. The Derm suits had just served to add an extra layer of stress to the mission for me.

  “Hey Milo,” Liberty called, after I’d finished loading my equipment. She walked over to me, and I looked at the floor.

  “Uh, yeah?” I asked. She looked at me strangely.

  “Are you OK, bud?” she asked, trying to catch my gaze.

  “Yeah, yeah. You know. Just nervous.” I replied. “I want to do a good job,” I added.

  “You’ll do fine, don’t worry bud,” she assured me, offering a thin smile. “Everything good with the guns and ammo?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I can honestly say I’ve given the
m a thorough and comprehensive check,” I told her, making a conscious effort to look directly into her eyes.

  “Awesome, good man!” she said, then walked over to Casper.

  After checking nothing had been left behind, I got into the pod, and sat next to Tasia on one of the very basic seats. It wasn’t soft and comfortable, being made as it was from cheaply machined carbon sheeting. Because the pod was designed to glide down to the planet surface, and then left behind, it was as basic as it could be whilst still being rigid enough to survive the trip to its destination. Though it seemed like a waste of resources to build and then effectively dump a structure of its size, it was more economic than landing ships on the ground in unknown territory. There was still a great risk to the transports when they had to land for extraction, but the process still cut down the risk of destruction by half. It was also quicker to release the pods in the upper atmosphere and then carry on to the next destination than it would be to make a full landing.

  “How are you holding up?” Tasia asked me, with a genuine look of concern in her eyes.

  “You know, as well as can be expected I guess,” I said. “How about you?” I asked. She looked incredibly calm considering, having seemingly switched to soldier mode at some point since breakfast.

  “The same, yeah,” she replied. “Gonna be nice to get onto solid ground and get some fresh, bottled air,” she continued with a little smile. The attempt at a joke took me by surprise, so I just looked back at her blankly. Her little smile faded, and she looked away.

  “Sorry,” I offered once I realised what she’d said. “There’s a lot going on in my head, you know.” She nodded, smiling again.

  “These suits are a bit weird, aren’t they?” she said, smiling again. “I’m glad I didn’t have too much breakfast!” This time, I did snort in amusement.

  “I think Casper ate a whole bunch of rocks this morning,” I replied. “You can see them all in his stomach,” I said, nodding towards Casper as he walked aboard. Tasia giggled, and Casper looked across at us, bemused.

  “What are you two giggling about?” he asked. “We’re about to be dropped thousands of feet down onto a hostile planet in a cardboard box,” he continued, with enough humour in his voice that it was clear he wasn’t trying to scare anyone.

  “What in the stars is cardboard?” I asked. Tasia giggled again, this time looking at me in surprise.

  “Seriously? You’ve never seen cardboard?!” she asked incredulously.

  “Of course he hasn’t. He’s never even seen a tree, remember?” It was Antonia, climbing into one of the seats that backed onto ours. I turned my neck to look across at her, and she had traces of a smile on her lips. I decided that she wasn’t ripping into me, and that we actually had some degree of friendly banter going on, which was pretty shocking. This is what it took to bring us together? Real danger potentially rearing its head?

  “Cut out the chatter, maggots,” Liberty boomed, as she strode aboard. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, looking formal and stern. I looked across in surprise, wondering why she choose to cut off what little friendly rapport we were building up. She stood there for a few moments, glaring at us. Then, her big brown eyes sparkled, and a grin crossed her face. Beside me, Tasia started giggling again. It was a magical sound, something I really hadn’t heard enough of recently. True, non-aggressive laughter. I was starting to feel a lot more relaxed.

  “OK, guys,” Liberty said, still standing arms crossed in front of us, but looking far less formal. “This is it. Hung isn’t gonna wave goodbye. I’m about to close the door. I’d ask if anyone wants to change their minds, but that’s not really an option. Despite what might have been said over the last few weeks, despite what any of you might think. I have faith in you. All of you. We haven’t been in true combat before, which means I haven’t seen the best of you yet. It’s just us now. We’re all we’ve got for the next however many hours. We’ve been trained. We know what we’re doing. It’s a simple mission. Get in, search out the anomaly, get back, and report. Most importantly, stay alive. No heroes. Unless someone’s gonna shoot me, that is, then, heroes are encouraged.” We all gave a little bit of a clap, and Liberty pulled the door lever, then sat down on the chair at the head. After a couple of minutes, the pod began to rumble, and then shake. I felt my stomach lurch a bit as the ship began to rise, then a jolt as it shot forward. As we left the artificial gravity reach of the Anastasia, I felt my body lose its weight.

  We all just sat in silence, as the ship accelerated continuously. I started to feel a bit sick, something that hadn’t occurred to me might happen, what with everything else I had to think about. After a while, I’m not sure how long, my body started to adjust to the forces at work on my body, and I was able to relax a bit. I was once again aware of my surroundings, and the fact that I was surrounded by people.

  “How long does it take to get there?” I asked, to no-one in particular. I knew roughly what the answer was, but, for the first time in a long time, I actually felt like talking to people. Maybe because I didn’t want to be alone with whatever my thoughts might be.

  “It’s gonna be an hour or so,” Tasia informed me.

  “Is there a clock?” I asked her, turning to look at her. She shook her head.

  “I have one,” Casper replied.

  “Why do you have a clock?” Tasia asked him.

  “It’s on this short-range scanner,” he replied.

  “Why is there a clock on a short-range scanner?” I asked him. “It’s gonna be wrong to the time on the planet anyway?”

  “There is no time on the planet,” he answered. “Only what time we take with us.”

  “There is time on the planet,” Liberty announced. “It just doesn’t relate to us.”

  “Well… what if it’s dark when we get there?” I asked, feeling panicky. “Did we bring torches or anything?”

  “We’re due to arrive with about 12 hours of daylight left on the side of the planet where the anomaly is,” Liberty replied. “Milo, please tell me you were listening at the briefing?” she asked, sounding genuinely stern.

  “I listened, I listened. I just forgot!” I replied.

  “We have torch attachments for the guns,” Casper called over.

  “We do?” I asked. “I didn’t see them with the guns?” I said, worrying that I’d screwed up after all.

  “They’re with the tech equipment,” Casper replied, matter-of-factly.

  “Well, shouldn’t they have been with the guns?!” I asked incredulously.

  “No, they’re a tech item,” Casper advised me.

  “But they go on the guns!” I protested. “I only have one job, so I should get to do the whole part of it!”

  “They’re a tech item,” Casper insisted.

  “Is there anything else you’ve forgotten about from the briefing?” Liberty asked me, concern in her voice.

  “No, no, It’s fine, I remember it, it’s fine.” I replied hastily.

  “OK, then,” Liberty replied. “Maybe then you should refresh us the details?” she suggested.

  “Now?!” I asked indignantly.

  “Yes, now,” Liberty replied, sarcasm in her voice. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”

  So I did. I went over every little thing I could remember from the briefing, in as much detail as possible in hopes that would mask the act that I wasn’t remembering everything. Liberty and Tasia filled in some gaps that I’d left, but I insisted that I had remembered those too. They hadn’t been particularly significant things, so I was able to argue my way out of it on a point of relevance, or rather the lack of it.

  A siren began wailing, and a light started to flash.

  “Whoa! What is that?” I shouted out. “What’s going on?” panic in my voice.

  “It’s just the arrival alarm!” Liberty shouted back, “We’re coming up on the planet.”

  “That’s the arrival alarm?!” I asked. “It didn’t sound that loud on the video?”

  “
Everyone, be prepared to brace for landing,” Liberty shouted out, ignoring me.

  I braced. Then, I stopped bracing. I wanted to ask why we hadn’t landed, but thought better of it. Clearly, I should know the answer to that. Despite the volume of the alarm, clearly it wasn’t an indication of particularly close proximity of the planet. Soon enough, though, the alarm changed tone, and the alarm went red.

  “OK, everybody brace for descent!” Liberty shouted, needlessly. I was gripping my chair as tightly as I could manage, trying to remember the position we’d been taught a couple of weeks back. We had to get as hunched back into our chair as our restraints would allow. The landing, in theory, shouldn’t be that bad. All being well, we would glide down, with the pod shaped so as to allow a ‘smooth, gentle slide at landing’, as I remembered the video telling us. We began our glided descent. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I probably would have felt sick again. There was too much happening for that to be a major concern, though. The worst part about the landings, we’d been told, was that there was no warning when you were about to hit ground. The data for the alarms was provided by the main ship, but after we’d detached, we’d become just a floating box. The light and alarm went off, leaving only a few hydrogen strips for lighting, and I could feel the descent beginning. The front was to my left, so my whole body was effectively tilting to one side. The gravity of the planet would be pulling the ship down, but we were in free-fall. It was an odd sensation. Liberty was at the back of the pod, facing away from the front, so would be falling backwards, which sounded like it was probably the worst position. That was why the leader got that seat; they always had to sacrifice the most. We fell for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only minutes. I began to feel pain in my ears, as the rapid descent made them pop with the changing pressure.